How To Select A Better Domain Name?

If you are starting your business online, one of the first things you need to focus on is to register a better domain name that is suitable to your business and what you offer – products or services. Now this is a tricky situation for any entrepreneur, who is up for making a big. But he has to start from somewhere. Here comes another trouble. What domain name an entrepreneur should choose for his new business? Whether he should go for brand name based domain or think of some unique and creative name.

Selecting A Better Domain Name

Branding agencies in India have a fascination with creative names, but then they are doing their business in offline market; if you are offering your services for online marketing & branding, then you need to select domain that not only reflects your type of business but also helps you in online marketing & branding. Your selection will surely influence your website’s success in every area including search engine optimization (SEO) and social media optimization (SMO).

Keywords should not be the primary concern

For many years SEOs and search marketing agencies have often bought websites that included their targeted keywords & phrases to shoot up CTRs and to help gain higher positions on search engines like Google, Yahoo and other search engines. Let’s analyse this way to figure out if it is still effective.

Many SEO planners would prefer Exact Match Domains, which exactly match the keyword phrase they are targeting. For instance, if they want first ranking on Buy Silk Sari, then they would go for BuySilkSari.com.

The logic behind EMD was simple; presence of the keyword phrase in the domain would enhance the ranking possibility. Other web masters would be encouraged to include the site link. But according to latest research and Google updates (read EMD updates), EMDs are now not helpful as they used to be.

According to a research agency, the average EMD ranking slid from 13.4 to 26.6 and average top 10 EMD went from 3.2 down to 11.9

Another website quotes that the relation between EMD with ranking has gone down from 0.34 in 2010 to 0.18 in 2012. Hence, many SEO agencies and freelance practitioners feel that EMDs and other keyword based domains might be less effective and beneficial for customers in future. At the same time, it is not advisable to avoid or abandon keyword based domains. It only means that keywords should not be the primary concern for any online advertiser while selecting a domain.

CTR & SERP

As opposed to mentioned above, there are some cases, where premium keyword domain can shoot up CTR (click-through rates) and SERP (search engine results page) listings.

According to Memorable Domains, online ads targeted to boost generic domain with exact match to the product performed far better than identical ads with alternative generic or non-generic domain.

Before you select a domain name…

Once you have decided your business type, you need to conduct intensive analyis on the search volume of your domain name. Use Google’s keyword research tool to find the exact match search volume for the keyword phrase. Before you buy the domain, make sure about the price. Most premium keyword domains are already registered and are difficult to obtain. If possible, go for .com as any other domain like .net and .info would be far less valuable than .com domain. A new extension is now available specially for start-up websites. Dot Triple O (.OOO) is a top-level domain operated by Infibeam.com, one of the largest and fast growing e-commerce portals in India.

The Brandability of Your Domain

While selecting a domain name, it is important to have a name that matches your target keywords, but today it is more important to an entrepreneur should consider brandability of the domain.

A brand is important and the domain name is the base on which you have to build a strong brand. Users or potential customers will search, remember, share and identify your company online. In social media and search engines, domain name is an important way by which customers can identify where the link will lead. Moreover, customers build some perception in their minds after reading your domain name.

There is a misconception about SEO as to SEO is only about keywords and links; but the reality is that Google likes brands. Eric Schmidt, Google’s Executive Chairman, once said “Brands are the solution, not the problem. Brands are how you sort out the cesspool. Brand affinity is clearly hard-wired. It is so fundamental to human existence that it’s not going away.”